Jun 24, 2008 Issue | Updated Jul 2 4:06pm 
Oct 24, 2006 8:00 AM
In Memoriam
George Bartholomew
George Bartholomew, 87, a distinguished emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, died Oct. 2. He played an important role in shaping the history of the department and supported biology graduate students through the Bartholomew Research Fellowship Awards, which he established with his wife, Ruth.
Bartholomew was a significant figure in the post-WWII history of the department, which was originally called Zoology. In the late 1950s, he was a central player in the department’s transition into a more participatory, shared governance mode. He was a soft-spoken and thoughtful observer and participant in departmental and campus affairs for nearly 40 years, serving terms as chair of both Zoology and Botany, at the time a separate department. He helped facilitate the merger of the two into the Biology Department. He was an important influence on the founding of the Molecular Biology Institute and on the recruitment to the department of the first group of molecularly oriented faculty, before the present Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology was formed.
Bartholomew was a beloved teacher at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He was presented with a campus Distinguished Teaching Award in 1966 for his mentoring of graduate students. A high proportion of his students and postdocs went on to become significant figures in their own fields of study.
He worked extensively for many years with the former film unit of University Extension, developing with them a series of teaching documentary films that is still widely used. With colleagues Malcolm Gordon and Alan Grinnell and two other co-authors, he was a major contributor to the development and production of a textbook of comparative ecological physiology that was both influential in the development of its field and widely adopted internationally.
He was a highly creative and productive researcher, recognized worldwide as one of the three principal founders of the fields of comparative physiological ecology and ecological physiology. He studied the functional adaptations of organisms (plants as well as animals) to natural environments, bringing together the fields of physiology, behavior and ecology. A major pioneer in the study of desert organisms, Bartholomew was a central player in the establishment of his research fields in both Australia and South Africa. He was a strong advocate for studying organisms in the field as well as in the laboratory, bringing new technologies to field investigations.
Bartholomew’s contributions to science were recognized by his elections to the National Academy of Science in 1985 and to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1981. He was the first recipient of the Grinnell Medal, awarded by the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley.
Memorial gifts may be made to the George A. Bartholomew Fund at UCLA, with checks made payable to the UCLA Foundation. Send checks to: The George Bartholomew Fund, c/o The UCLA Foundation, UCLA Wilshire Center, 10920 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 900, Los Angeles, CA 90024-6519.
William Oliver Bright
William Oliver Bright, an energetic and longstanding authority on Native American languages, died Oct. 15 of a brain tumor at the age of 78. Bright was among the first professors of linguistics at UCLA, where he taught for 29 years until his retirement in 1988. For 21 years, through 1987, he served as the editor of Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America.
The Oxnard native wrote more than 200 books, articles and reviews, including several dictionaries of Native American languages that were on the brink of disappearing and books on the origin of place names in California and elsewhere.
“He was probably the greatest authority in the world on Native American place names,” said Jane Hill, a Regent’s professor at the University of Arizona. His classic work preserving the language of California’s Karuk tribe ultimately led the Karuk to make Bright their first honorary member in the days before his death at a hospice near his home in Boulder, Colo.
Other linguists said Bright helped keep the focus on data-driven research during a period of intramural warfare sparked by the ideas of MIT linguist Noam Chomsky.
After earning undergraduate and doctoral degrees at UC Berkeley, he taught in India and at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute before joining the faculty at UCLA. While at UCLA, he encouraged scholars and writers as diverse as Deborah Tannen, author of the bestseller “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,” and Carlos Castaneda.
Twice widowed and twice divorced, Bright is survived by his daughter, Susie Bright; his granddaughter, Aretha Bright; his fifth wife, University of Colorado linguistics professor Lise Menn; and his stepsons Stephen Menn, a philosophy professor at McGill University in Montreal, and Joseph Menn, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times.
Lise Menn asked that any donations be used for funding the newly created Bill Bright Award for Research, c/o the Endangered Language Fund, 300 George St., Suite 900, New Haven, CT 06511.
Memorial services will be held at the University of Colorado in early November and at the January meeting in Anaheim of the Linguistic Society of America.
Tommy Johnson
Tommy Johnson, a tuba player and adjunct professor in the Department of Music since 1973, died Oct. 16 from complications of cancer and kidney failure at the UCLA Medical Center. He was 71.
“Tommy was a beloved colleague and he will be missed very much,” said Ian Krouse, chair of the music department. “Over the years I’ve had countless conversations about Tommy with many individuals from all over the country, including numerous former students now sitting as principals in major American orchestras. Everyone had only the best to say about him. Adjectives such as ‘legendary’ and ‘superlative’ were always coupled with ‘sweet,’ ‘humble’ and the like.”
A native of Los Angeles, Johnson was a “first-call” tuba player at major motion picture studios and recorded soundtracks for more than 2,000 movies dating back to 1958. Among the films were “A Bug’s Life,” “Air Force One,” “Armageddon,” “Back to the Future,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Forrest Gump,” “The Godfather,” “Independence Day,” “Jaws,” “Lethal Weapon,” “The Lion King,” “The Matrix,” “The Thin Red Line” and “Titanic.”
Johnson performed as tuba soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pasadena Symphony, the San Fernando Valley Symphony, the L.A. Pops Orchestra, the Henry Mancini Orchestra, the USC Wind Ensemble and the Los Angeles Tuba Quartet. Recordings include “The Manhattan Transfer Meets Tubby the Tuba,” “Partita for Brass Quintet and Tape” (Lazarof) and “Jean-Pierre Rampal Plays Scott Joplin.”
He received the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences’ Most Valuable Player Award for Tuba Player for seven consecutive years, from 1974-1980. In 1981, he was awarded the Academy’s “Emeritus Most Valuable Tuba Player.”
Johnson earned a bachelor’s of music degree from the University of Southern California, where he later taught tuba. He also taught music for many years at the junior high school level in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He did graduate work at USC and at California State University, Northridge.
He is survived by his wife, Patricia; sons Keith and Michael; daughters Jennifer Bellusci and Susan Jacobson; a sister, Almita Shivers; and nine grandchildren.
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